


Treasure Chest

by 221b_hound



Series: The Million Word Festival [7]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bat John, Dragon Sherlock, Friendship, Gen, Happy Ending, Lonely John, Lonely Sherlock, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 22:04:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5432444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A small bat escaping from intrusive humans encounters a Mighty Dragon. The little bat would be taking this a lot more seriously if the Mighty Dragon wasn't so little himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Treasure Chest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [1butterfly_grl1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/1butterfly_grl1/gifts).



> 1butterfly_grl1prompted "What would happen if Bat!John met Dragon!Lock?"
> 
> Now you know.

When you are a small flying mammal, life can be an enormous adventure. You have to be fast and clever to succeed. And by ‘succeed’ we mean ‘not die’.

Life can also be lonely, if you are a small flying mammal whose colony has taken flight and left the littlest bat behind, because its wing was injured and he couldn’t fly to a safe new cave with all the rest.

Life can be both of those things – adventurous and lonely – even once the wing has healed, because all the echo location in the world cannot help a little bat find a colony that is nowhere to be located, no matter how hard he listens for the echoes from his sonar squeaks.

On this day, a small but lonely bat by the name of John was succeeding in life by flitting as fast as his little wings would take him down down down the cave system and away away away from the noisy, stinky, rude machines of the Huge Furless Wingless Not-Bats that had been destroying his cosy little cave for days now.

Horrible things, these – what did they call themselves? _People._ Ugh. Perhaps they might have been scary, but the little bat was hard to frighten. For such a tiny thing, he had a heart as big as the moon, and it was filled to the top with courage and curiosity.

But the noise and the smell were too much for his delicate senses and it wasn’t fear that drove him away. Mostly, it was his hurting ears.

So the little bat flew and flew and flew into tiny spaces that took him farther and farther from the light, into parts of the caves he had never explored before; deep into the mountain.

Exhausted and hungry, the wee bat flitted to a stalactite, clutched it in its little feet and hung there, panting for breath.

A voice boomed suddenly out of the pitch darkness.

‘ ** _WHO FLIES IN MY DOMAIN?_** ’

The tiny bat was very still, and listened very hard. With his big ears, he could hear breathing, but the breathing he could hear seemed small and thin compared to the voice.

‘My name’s John!’ he squeaked into the black-ink-dark, bold and fearless as his naturally squeaky voice could be. ‘Who sits there in the dark yelling at me?’

 ** _‘I AM A MIGHTY DRAGON!’_** roared the voice out of the darkness.

‘You’re a rude git!’ John squeaked back, annoyed - because bats don’t have to judge the size of the threat by the volume of the voice. They can use echolocation to work out how large a body belongs to so booming a noise.

‘ ** _YOU DARE TO SPEAK TO ME SO DISCOURTEOUSLY?!_** ’

‘You dared it first,’ riposted John, ‘Besides, you’re only little too.’

‘ _Only little_? I mean… **_ONLY LITTLE? I AM A MIGHTY_** …’

‘Yes, you said, but I can see you. Well, not _see_ you. But my sonar is bouncing off you over there, near that rock that’s shaped like a funnel. Is that how you’re making your voice so big? Here. Move over…’

And the fearless little bat _,_ energised by curiosity, released the stalactite, flapped his wings hard and flew right over the funnel shaped rock and clutched onto another stalactite.

Upside-down, his face was right near the narrow end of the funnel. The Mighty Dragon had withdrawn, but John squeaked and the echo bounced back, and there was the little fellow, a few yards to the left.

‘Don’t be scared,’ said John, kindly, ‘I don’t eat mighty dragons.’

‘ _I eat…_ I mean… _I EAT_... oh damn. _I eat little_ … _things_. Whatever you are. Bats, that’s right. _I eat little bats!_ ’

John made farting noise with his tongue, but because of where he was hanging, the raspberry blurted through the funnel and rolled indolently out of the larger end of it.

**_BLLLLLLLLLLUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRTHHHPHHHHHPHHHTTTT_ **

John naturally began to giggle.

That sound was amplified through the funnel as well. The high-pitched giggle got gigglier as it rolled around and around and around the cave.

‘It’s not funny!’ protested the Mighty Dragon.

‘ _IT’S NOT FUNNY!_ ’ squeaked John into the funnel as grandly as he could, before giggling madly into it again. He had his wings folded around his body, which was shaking with how hard he was laughing.

If the Mighty Dragon really did eat little bats, John was going to be in a lot of strife, but that didn’t stop him giggling.

John pinged sonar out again to see if the Mighty Dragon was sneaking up on him. What came back to him was a shape perhaps three times his own wingspan, twice his height and five times his length, standing out on the smooth sandy floor of the cave, its head cocked to one side.

John flapped his wings in greeting. ‘Come on. I told you my name. What’s yours?’

The shape huffed. Shivered its wings. Sat on its haunches with its head high.

‘I am Sherlock, of the clan _Potens Draco_ , the Last of My Kind.’ He said it as though he were still booming it out through the funnel and there was a strangely sad dignity in his tone. It was a little pompous still, but it didn’t make John want to giggle. Quite the opposite.

‘You’re the last one, are you?’ asked John in a small voice. ‘Me too. Not of my kind, I suppose. But the last of my colony. They left me behind. Did your colony leave you too?’

‘In a manner of speaking. They died.’

‘Oh. I’m sorry.’

‘You didn’t kill them.’

‘No. But. I’m sorry anyway.’

Sherlock the Mighty Dragon seemed to consider this. ‘I am sorry your colony left you behind,’ he said, and even sounded like he meant it. ‘Why did they do that?’

‘They had to get away from the wingless furless people, and I’d hurt my wing in a rockfall and couldn’t fly. So they went without me.’

‘Ah. The humans. They’re the ones who killed my kind. They missed me.' He paused, and then added, 'I’m too small.’ As he admitted this, he at last sounded like the little, lonely thing he was.

‘Small doesn’t mean not mighty,’ offered John kindly.

‘Yes,’ said Sherlock thoughtfully, ‘I can see that.’

They fell silent for a while, with only the drip of water and the breaths of two small creatures to fill the darkness.

‘What do you eat, then?’ asked Sherlock.

‘Fruit, mainly,’ said John, ‘And some insects. You?’

‘Fish,’ said Sherlock. ‘It was said that my kind could be sustained by treasure alone, but all we had was stolen. So mainly it’s fish.’

‘Not bats, then?’

‘No,’ said Sherlock, and John could hear the smile in his voice, ‘Not bats.’

Another short silence reigned, and then John said, ‘So. Sherlock. Could you… ah… spare a bit of cave? Only the wingless furless things…’

‘Humans.’

‘… the humans are tearing up my bit of the caves for wingless furless reasons, and I don’t have a home any more.’

John pinged again, and was aware that the Mighty Dragon had come up close to him. Was sniffing him. John hung from the stalactite and let himself be sniffed. He spread his wings, even, to allow that  cold nose to inspect him all over, scant hairs-breadths away from his vulnerable body.

He did that because he was brave, and curious, and because he was lonely, and he was tired, and if Sherlock was lying about eating bats, then at least he’d had a good laugh and a bit of conversation before the end.

When a little forked tongue flickered out over John's belly, though, it didn’t frighten him. It tickled.

John giggled.

‘You really are the most remarkable little creature,’ said Sherlock, intrigued and amused.

‘You _licked_ me. It _tickled._ ’

‘It’s one of my most important senses!’ Sherlock told him. ‘I lick everything.’

John giggled some more. ‘Well, can I lick you, then?’

John felt something nudge against his face. He stuck out his tongue and licked what turned out to be a scaly draconian nose.

‘You’re a lizard!’ he said.

‘I’m a dragon,’ Sherlock corrected him, offended.

‘A _mighty dragon_ ,’ John replied, trying to make his tone portentous but of course it was just portentously squeaky. He laughed a bit and then said to the offended darkness. ‘You really are though. A dragon. A wee but mighty dragon. Can you breathe fire?’

Sherlock cleared his throat, turned his head and politely belched an orange fireball into the darkness, temporarily lighting up the cavern. A river ran along the cave wall to the east and the floors and ceiling were replete with stalactites and stalagmites.

‘Amazing,’ said John.

‘You think so?’ asked Sherlock, as though surprised anyone would find it so.

‘Of course. It’s beautiful.’

‘Hmm.’ Sherlock’s wings creaked slightly as he spread them to the full wingspan and then folded them against his body again. ‘You can stay if you want. Plenty of room.’

‘Thanks,’ said John.

‘Don’t mention it,’ said Sherlock. He nosed briefly at John again. ‘No fruit down here, but if we follow the river back, there’s a vent going up. It opens near some berry trees. Plenty of insects too. I’ll take you.’

He flew off.

John freefell from the stalactite flapped hard and followed.

*

Hours later, full of berries and bugs, John and his new cave-mate returned to the secluded safety of their deep cave, far away from the humans. John hung upside down from a stalactite but he was restless. He always had trouble sleeping. Bats weren’t mean to sleep alone.

Sherlock the Mighty Dragon watched John mutter and shift and shiver, wings wrapped around himself. John’s big ears twitched and he seemed to mutter sad little sounds to himself in his unsettled sleep.

Sherlock flew up to the stalactite, considered the arrangement, and then nosed at John’s face.

‘John. John. John. Wake up John. John. Wake up. John. John. JOHN!’

John squeaky-snorted, fell off the stalactite and began flying just in time to cleverly succeed in not braining himself on the floor.

‘WHAT?’ he snapped, irritable from the sudden waking and the poor sleeping.

‘You should sleep with me,’ said Sherlock, ‘You need a warm body next to you.’

‘You’re not a warm body. You’re a mighty _lizard_.’

‘I’m a mighty _dragon_. I _breathe fire_. If you sleep next to my chest, it will be very warm.’

John considered the truth of it, and considered the offer, and his lonely little heart beat triple time with longing to be cuddled up close with someone else.

So he flew up to where Sherlock had found a ledge, and he wriggled around between Sherlock’s front legs and his chest until his little feet were hanging on to the scales on one side of Sherlock’s neck, where the ridges of his wings began. John folded his wings around his little body and turned his face to snug against Sherlock’s chest, where he could hear the mighty dragon heart beating, and he sighed, contented.

Sherlock tucked his front legs and turned his left paw up to help hold John in place. Then he folded his wings forward, making a toasty warm shelter for the bat.

‘S nice,’ mumbled John.

‘I’ll keep you s… warm.’ _Safe. Safe and warm_.

‘Mmmm.’ The little bat was already almost asleep.

Sherlock bowed his head to rest his cheek alongside the bat’s tight-wrapped body, and he, too fell asleep.

*

A legend grew around that mountain, among the humans, among the other creatures too, the ones that were sentient enough to understand. A legend of a brave bat who was the last of his people, and a wee dragon who was the last of his kind. Bat and Dragon were inseparable, and they explored the depths of the mountain and defeated Moriarty the Troll King who had lurked at its burning heart.

Stranger still, said the legend – that little mortal bat now lived forever, given perpetual life because it slept next to the dragon’s heart, where dragons keep their treasure.

 


End file.
